


Hybrid Theory

by missmichellebelle



Series: The Fox and His Hound [1]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fox!Ian, Husky!Mickey, Hybrids, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-31
Updated: 2014-08-31
Packaged: 2018-02-15 14:54:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2233125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmichellebelle/pseuds/missmichellebelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s a genetic thing. One of those traits that can pop up anywhere, in anyone, like blue eyes or blond hair, except that it calls for things like tails and claws and wings. But it’s just another one of those check boxes in life now—gender, sex, sexuality, ethnicity, <b>hybrid</b>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hybrid Theory

**Author's Note:**

> So I have no idea how this lines up with canon of the show, or if it does. This is going to be a true verse, meaning that the story will happen in a non-linear fashion, so if you're looking for a plot that is going to continue through each installment to tell an overall story... That's not what this is. XD
> 
> Hybrid AUs can go in a lot of different directions, and I made Ian a fox and Mickey a dog (a husky, specifically) because I wanted to so... Deal with it or don't read it or something.
> 
> Also, I'm sorry for all the epithets. Mickey's name doesn't show up until like the last thousand words. /o\
> 
> Rated T despite the fact that there's some definite humping action at some point.

It’s a little later than Ian usually heads home from work, but he’d wasted time standing around waiting for a bus that wasn’t coming (not that he knew that) before the cold seeping in through his slightly-too-thin coat could no longer be fought off by bouncing on the balls of his feet. It must be cold if he’s feeling it—he runs warmer than most. Can’t help it, really. He walks briskly, arms crossed to keep his body heat in, and ears and eyes alert just like they always are when he’s walking by himself. It’s the kind of subconscious activity people develop, growing up in a place like this, but for Ian, it’s the kind of behavior he was born with as a hybrid.

That’s the only reason he hears it over the low rumble of the city. He can’t help but hear it, really. The sound of shuffling, the drag of something heavy and substantial across the concrete. Ian slows to a stop and glances into the shallow outcrop of the closest building—steps to a backdoor, a few dumpsters, and completely deserted otherwise. He doesn’t see anything, but that doesn’t mean no one’s there.

He can hear them. He can _smell_ them.

Ian doesn’t call out. He doesn’t tighten his arms and continue walking. He doesn’t reach for the knife folded up in his back pocket. He just stares at the dumpsters for a few moments, muscles tightened and tense the way they get before he’s ready to spring into action, but otherwise perfectly still.

There’s a loud _thump_ , before a shadow of a figure flops into view from behind one of the dumpsters, landing painfully hard on the asphalt. The sudden movement makes him jolt in surprise, ears flattening and tail lashing, ready to bare his teeth, but the figure doesn’t move any closer to him—just lays there limp on the ground.

Ian’s ears twist curiously, and he nearly dismisses what he thought he’d was a threat as just another homeless bum or addict (fuck, it could be his own _dad_ ), except for the smell. The one he isn’t even looking for but that comes to him, nonetheless.

Male. Animal. Blood.

Scared.

It’s one of those times when Ian wishes his biological curse-perks came with beyond standard-human vision, so instead he moves hesitantly closer, aware that at any second this whole situation could turn violent.

 _Dog_ , his nose tells him as he inches closer, grimacing at the thick scents of trash and dirt and _city_ that he only picks up when he’s trying to sniff something out. It’s almost enough to make him stop, but his curiosity, like most times, wins out.

Except this isn’t just a regular dog—too big, too long, too proportionally similar to Ian himself.

Lying by his feet in clothes that are too big, beaten and bloodied with a thick iron chain trailing from his ankle, is another hybrid.

*

It’s a genetic thing. One of those traits that can pop up anywhere, in anyone, like blue eyes or blond hair, except that it calls for things like tails and claws and wings. But it’s just another one of those check boxes in life now—gender, sex, sexuality, ethnicity, hybrid.

At least, it’s supposed to be. Ian knows better than to believe in equality.

It would be him. It’s not enough that he has the red hair and the green eyes that make him looking nothing like his parents or older siblings, but he has to have the fox ears and tail, too. He’s the first hybrid in his immediate family until Liam is born with yellow-golden rounded ears and a lion’s tail, although apparently there’s a great aunt or uncle on their mom’s side with a rat’s tail (like, an actual one, not just an unfortunate hairstyle choice from a distant decade).

At least, that’s what Frank always told him.

Ian supposes he could have it worse—he knew a kid in school that grew quills like a porcupine out of his back. It should have made him a badass, but it mostly just made him miserable.

The worst thing he has to deal with is his tail molting when winter ends.

*

Out of all of his siblings, Ian doesn’t really think he can claim the title as most impulsive. But impulsive is the only thing he can think to call himself as he lifts the unconscious hybrid off the ground and slings him over his shoulder. Ian grunts with the effort, shifting the guy’s weight until he can start walking. He’s slower going, but at least he’s not as cold anymore. This dude is giving off warmth like a portable heater, and Ian thinks it has little to do with the animal blood inside of him. His fox sense can’t smell sick the way it can smell hurt, but Ian’s human intuition can certainly put two-and-two together.

It’s an awkward walk home, Ian’s human brain trying to rationalize what he’s doing while his animal one growls and insists it’s right in it’s own special way, all the while the dog hybrid’s tail keeps swishing up into Ian’s face and tickling his nose, the chain hanging from his ankle beating against Ian’s shin.

*

The Gallagher house glows like a beacon at the end of the street, beckoning him home, and for once, Ian wishes that it wasn’t. Wishes all the lights were extinguished and he could haul his find inside without anyone knowing any better. But life has never been convenient, so he steels himself as he climbs the steps to the door.

Fiona, Kev, and Vee are all situated in the living room around a coffee table loaded with a range of empty to mostly-empty beer bottles. They’re laughing.

“You’re home late,” Fiona says in lieu of a greeting, but there’s no drop of concern in her smile. Just a casual observation. No one really even gives Ian a second glance, and he feels relief sag over him as he makes his way as carefully as he can for the stairs. It’s not like he has an empty bedroom to go to, but… Well, he’ll deal with the specifics when he lugs all the dead weight up to the second floor.

He almost gets away with it, until Jimmy walks out from the kitchen toting two new cases of beer.

“Woah,” he says too loudly and way too observantly for someone who _should_ be drunk. “What happened?”

Ian’s not a fan of Jimmy, never mind the fact that he’d introduced himself into their lives as _Steve_. He’d tried to tell Ian that he was born as a hybrid, too, but that his parents had taken steps to remove his animalistic traits. “A lemur,” he’d told Ian with this far-off look in his eye, and Ian had looked away, unsure if he could trust someone who had lied so blatantly about his own fucking _name_.

“Holy fuck,” Fiona hisses, springing from the couch as she realizes that Ian is carrying a body up the stairs.

“It’s fine,” Ian assures them, eyes flitting across their faces and gazes as they fix on him. “My friend got himself wasted, passed out, and I don’t know where he lives, so I lugged his drunk ass back here.” Ian hopes it sounds a lot more convincing than it feels coming out of his mouth.

“Didn’t know you were friends with another hybrid,” Kev comments, but he doesn’t sound skeptical—is too drunk for that level of suspicion. He’s a horse hybrid, with a long tail to match his pricked ears, and Ian is glad he isn’t something with a stronger sense of smell right in that moment.

“Yep,” Ian pops out, and then starts his ascent back up the stairs. The truth is that Kev is the only other hybrid that Ian is technically friends with, and that’s probably because he feels more like family than some random stranger. Being a hybrid has always made Ian feel like more of a loner than someone looking for a group to accept him—foxes, after all, don’t really travel in packs.

All the more strange that he brought some stray home with him, but that’s something he’ll deal with when he doesn’t have to worry so much about his stamina finally giving out.

He makes a beeline for the bathroom rather than his bedroom, needing the privacy of a locked door and a room he doesn’t share with two of his siblings. Without any better options, he sets the guy gently down on the bathmat and then presses his thumb to his lips, wondering what to do next.

The guy is white as a sheet, dark hair dirty and falling into his face. In the light, Ian can tell that his ears are white in front and black in back, and that his skin and clothes are streaked with dirt. His too-big clothing is ripped and torn, drowning him in the excess fabric. He has a black eye, a split lip, and cuts along his forehead and cheek, scabbed over with blood that was never wiped away. He’s not wearing shoes, and the skin beneath the iron shackle is rubbed raw and angry and bleeding.

 _Shit_.

It almost makes Ian wish he’d been honest with his sister and their neighbors, if only because he has no idea what to do here. The shackle on the hybrid’s ankle makes bile curl up Ian’s throat—he’s heard the horror stories about what some people do, and now he’s looking at it, a nightmare from his childhood painted in vivid, real colors on the bathroom floor.

Ian doesn’t know where this guy came from, or what he’s been through, and he knows that his life and his family don’t have much to give. But at least _here_ is better than wherever _there_ was.

*

Ian slowly and carefully strips the hybrid from his dirty clothing—he’s small, even smaller under his clothes, like he hasn’t been fed properly in… Too long. Way, way too long. With every piece of fabric Ian pulls back, he finds more bruises and scars. The skin on his palms is red, the broken skin fresher, and there are letters tattooed across his knuckles: F U C K U - U P. It’s the only thing that makes Ian kind of smile, even while the fox inside of him curls up and cowers, putting everything together and understanding sooner than the rest of Ian will allow himself.

He stops at the boxers, face heating up and eyes averted as he runs the hottest bath their water heater can manage. It’s a luxury none of them usually have—too much hot water to waste when six showers need to be had—but there are enough hours left in the night that Ian hopes he can get away with it without anyone noticing.

Picking up a nearly naked boy is a lot different than carrying around a fully clothed one, if only because Ian is a lot more aware of every inch of bare, sweltering skin that touches his own. It makes his heart beat too fast, and he doesn’t so much as lay the guy in the tub than he does drop him unceremoniously (but gently) into it.

Ian’s not sure what he’s expecting to happen—maybe that the guy will gain some level of consciousness, or that the water will somehow heal all the open wounds on his hands and feet. But all that Ian is given is an unconscious boy in a steaming tub of water, and since he’s already most of the way there, Ian removes his own shirt, grabs a rag from the pile by the sink, and starts to clean the grime and blood away from his dirty skin.

He finds blood caked under finger nails, and a few deep gashes that he didn’t see before. There’s blood congealed in his hair, his ears, his tail, and when Ian is done gently cleaning all the dirt out of all the cuts he can find, he grabs the shampoo bottle.

In all his life, Ian has never touched another boy—another hybrid—so completely and intimately. He’s thought about it, extensively, and jerked off to the thought about it, and while he’s hardly a virgin, there’s no so much… Touching. There is definitely never any hair washing.

That’s what seems to do it, though. As Ian lathers over the hybrid’s ears, there’s a low rumbling groan and his eyes finally open. Ian can tell instantly that he’s out of it—from blood loss, from hunger, from fever, Ian doesn’t know—but his eyes dance around the tile of the shower-bath until they land on Ian, blue and piercing even through the haze that covers him.

 _A husky_ , Ian thinks almost immediately, like the only thing missing from the equation were the bright colored eyes.

His ears twitch, flinging water droplets, and Ian stills. Over the smell of water, and soap, and shampoo (and _blood_ , and _skin_ ), Ian can smell the beginning strains of pain, and distress, and confusion, and fear, but then the husky hybrid’s eyelids droop and he loses consciousness again.

When Ian resumes washing his ears, there’s a faint slapping sound against the porcelain of the tub, and that makes Ian smile again.

It’s a tail wagging.

*

The husky clean and dry and dressed in Ian’s (still too big) clothes makes for a much different, and nicer, sight, even if all the cuts and bruises stand out like warning signs against his pale complexion. Ian found scars around his wrists and unshackled ankle, but given the condition of the skin under the iron bracelet, it’s not hard to imagine where they came from.

It’s later now, the house quiet and still in the way it never is during the day. It makes Ian feel more at ease, just knowing that he doesn’t have to deal with any inquisitive siblings as he jimmies the shackle open—it gives a lot easier than he expects it to, but then again, it looks pretty old and rusted.

Well used.

He swallows and tries not to think about it.

They don’t exactly keep a roll of ace bandages anywhere in the house, so he dabs at the torn skin to clean it as best he can before wrapping it up with the cleanest rag he can find. It’s probably the shittiest bandage in the world, but… It’s better than nothing.

Ian sits back against the bathroom door, eyes closed as he’s hit with how exhausted he suddenly is. He can practically hear his bed calling to him from the room next door, and he thinks about climbing into it and forgetting this whole night ever happened. Thinking that maybe, when he wakes up, the rational part of his brain will be in control again, and he’ll just laugh at himself for having such a vivid, ridiculous dream.

Instead, Ian scrubs his hands over his eyes, struggling to open them—the husky hybrid is still curled up on the rug, just where Ian left him—and then forces himself to stand. As nice as it would be to sleep and forget this whole night happened, it won’t change the fact that it _did_.

A part of Ian yammers that he should try to feed his guest—give him water, bread, _something_ —but the idea of lugging a rag doll down the stairs and then fighting to somehow get him conscious is far from appealing. Tomorrow, Ian reasons with himself, will have to do.

Ian stuffs the shackle in the back of one of the cabinets, something for him to deal with later when he isn’t so fucking _tired_ , and then hoists the other hybrid to his feet, slinging a pale, bruised arm around his shoulders. It would make more sense to carry him again, but Ian isn’t sure he has anymore strength left.

It’s not easy, given that the guy is unconscious and can’t exactly help put one foot in front of the other, but they don’t have far to go. As Ian struggles to navigate him silently through the dark, he wonders if it would have been better to have just left him in the bath—and then immediately pushes the thought away. He reasons that the last thing he wants is for Debbie or Fiona to go to take a shower in the morning and find some vagabond hybrid in their bathroom, but he knows that’s not what it is at all.

The guy is twitching and shuddering with chills as Ian helps him into the bed— _his_ bed—and as Ian covers him with blankets, he knows he couldn’t have left him in the bath anymore than he could have left him in that alley, broken and shivering and alone. The thing Ian doesn’t know is _why_.

He tries not to think about it as he rolls out his sleeping bag beside his bed.

*

Ian wakes up with a yelp as pain shoots from the end of his tail all the way up his spine.

“Woah, shit,” a groggy Carl mutters as Ian struggles to sit up, overcome with the sort of dizziness that comes from being completely unconscious to absolutely awake in way too short a time. He pulls his tail close, hissing between his teeth as he runs his hands over the thick red fur soothingly. Carl stares at him for a moment, seemingly apologetic, before the look turns swiftly to confusion. His eyes flick to Ian’s bed, and the tired glaze that had been settled there sharpens to dangerous curiosity.

Ian thinks that if Carl had been a hybrid (and if what type of hybrid a person was had something to do with their human personality, a theory which scientists have yet to find any _proof_ for), he would have been a cat. A dangerous, wild one. Like a bobcat, or a puma. Or maybe a panther.

“Who’s that?” Carl asks.

“A friend,” Ian replies, tiredly, still running a hand over his tail (it hurts like a _bitch_ ) as the other rubs at his eyes.

“Dude, is he a _wolf?_ Badass!”

_No. Dog._

Carl definitely has more appreciation for Ian’s hybrid faculties than the rest of his siblings, but even then, Ian really doesn’t know how to explain the _smell_ thing. Has never even tried. The last thing he wants to do is freak them out, even if human emotions are harder for him to sniff out than hybrid or animal ones.

There’s a grumbling groan from Ian’s bed as the guy slowly finds his way to consciousness, and Ian’s ears perk up, alerted to the noise. The first thing Ian hears him say is a groggy, “Huh?”

And then he smells it. Fear. Thick, overpowering, and sudden. The kind of fear that would overwhelm and envelope him if it didn’t immediately set off his defenses. Ian bolts to standing, eyes darting to Liam’s empty bed before he starts to herd Carl out as quickly as possible.

 _Danger_ , his entire body is telling him. Every muscle feels tensed, and there’s a growl sitting in his throat.

“Yep, and he’s pretty hungover, which makes him a little violent, so—“

“Violent?” Carl’s eyes spark, and Ian immediately realizes his mistake. “Can I—“

“No!” Ian pushes Carl over the threshold and slams the door, pushing against it with one hand as he fumbles to fling the lock into place. Unsurprisingly, Carl fights back, banging and kicking against the door, and Ian holds his ground until there’s one final kick and a muttered, “ _Asshole_.” He waits until he hears Carl stomp away, and then takes a breath before he turns around.

The husky is awake, pressed as far back on Ian’s bed as he can get, ears flat and teeth bared as he growls low in his throat.

 _He’s not going to attack me_ , Ian thinks. He’d had the opportunity—Ian had his back turned, he’d been absolutely defenseless, but no attack had come. _Why?_

Ian holds out his hands, keeps his distance, and takes a deep breath. If he can smell the dog, then the dog can _absolutely_ smell him and every feeling washing through him.

 _Protect_ , his own body screams at him, thinking of the family just beyond the door, and Ian tries to shift it to something that doesn’t make a fight seem imminent.

 _Safe_ , Ian thinks, letting his body relax, still holding his palms out. _Safe_ , he tries to project through his body.

He thinks maybe it works. At least the guy stops snarling at him, but his eyebrows are still pinched, blue eyes still glaring cold and untrusting at Ian.

Neither of them moves. Neither of them speaks.

He still smells like fear. Fear, and aggression, and confusion.

“My name is Ian,” Ian starts to tell him in a low voice, and his ears twitch as he bares his teeth again. “I found you in an alley last night and brought you home with me.”

It sounds so crazy even as he says it. It sounds so _fucked up_. Like he found an actual dog that needed help, that needed taking care of.

This isn’t a dog. This is a person. Fuck, Ian basically _kidnapped_ him.

He doesn’t realize he’s stepping forward, moving closer, until he’s already made it three steps. There are warning bells in his head, telling him this is a bad idea. Hell, he can see it’s a bad idea just by looking at how aggravated each movement is making the husky.

But for some reason, Ian doesn’t stop. Like maybe if he could touch him, he would see that Ian doesn’t mean him any harm.

Ian’s about two feet away when he hears a growled, “Don’t come closer.” It makes Ian pause, hands finally dropping to his sides. “Where am I?”

“Um. My house.” Didn’t Ian say that he brought him home? The glare focused on him turns harder. “In Chicago?” Ian tries, and that seems to resonate in some way—good or bad, Ian can’t tell. The fox inside of him can’t tell, either, and that’s a little terrifying.

Ian can practically feel the tense, angry energy pooling off the other hybrid—imagines that if hybrids ever lowered themselves to crawling around on all fours, this one would be pacing in tight circles on Ian’s bed. But instead he stays pressed against the wall, tail flicking about in aggravation, the muscles in his face and legs and arms twitching.

It makes Ian want to push him. It makes Ian want to press past the boundary line in front of him, just to give that energy a place to release. The human part of him thinks he’s fucking _insane_ , but the fox part… Is intrigued. Excited. _Playful_. Ian’s heart is pounding, like he’s on the edge of cliff, unsure whether or not to dive over the edge, completely clueless to what’s waiting for him at the bottom.

He takes a step forward, and blue eyes flash to him so quickly that he freezes in place—for a second. Then he takes another step.

“The _fuck_ did I say?” The guy growls at him, and Ian’s ears twist on his head, tail swaying back and forth behind him like a pendulum.

“What’s your name?” Ian asks, head tilted to the side. He’s breathing a little heavier, a side effect of the adrenaline that comes from flirting with imminent danger.

“Fuck _off_ ,” he growls in return, more fiercely, and seems to become angrier and more terrified with each step Ian takes.

A slow, challenging grin unfurls across Ian’s lips—the fox coming out to play completely. “That’s kind of a shitty name.”

Ian’s thighs have just hit the mattress when he’s tackled to the ground.

*

When Ian first came to understand that he was different from everyone else—his parents, his siblings, most of the rest of the world—he hadn’t known how to process the information. He’d spent too long staring at his reflection, thinking of the way Lip and Fiona looked and how he looked and acted  _different_. The way his ears were large and pointed and covered in copper-red fur, rather than small and fleshy and weird. The way he had a tail. The way his eye sight was keener in the day. The way he could _smell_ things. The way he just seemed to _know_ things.

It was terrifying. The parts of himself that he’d thought were normal, the things he thought that everyone could do and feel, turned out to be abnormalities. Lip never knew when a rabbit got under the fence in the yard. Fiona couldn’t tell when a dog had pissed on the porch step. Those were just things that Ian could do. Weird, strange, freaky,  _hybrid_ things. Things that made him different.

Ian didn’t want to be different. He was already different in so many ways, he didn’t _want_ any more.

So he stifled those things down. Ignored them. He didn’t mention what the neighbors across the street had for dinner, even though he knew. He didn’t ask Fiona what was wrong when he could smell the sadness radiating out of her. He stopped chasing rabbits. He chained the fox up inside of himself and told it to _be good, you’re human, too, you know_. The animal would just have to deal with being _more_ human than fox.

And just like that, pinned to his bedroom floor, the chain snaps like a dried up twig. The animal _fills_ him, takes over, the growl rippling from his throat feral and wild as he writhes and twists beneath the heavy weight of the other hybrid, who is snapping his teeth at him.

Arms pinned down beside his head, Ian lurches up and goes for the guy’s throat—their teeth are sharper than humans, but their skin is tougher. It’ll hurt like a bitch, but it won’t draw blood. Even if a part of Ian wants it to. Wants to taste it.

They continue to snap at each other, forgetting about the rest of their limbs, teeth the only viable weapon. They bash against each other, Ian’s nose into a cheek just long enough that a bite comes down _hard_ on his jaw, and he tugs away from it, air hitting saliva and bringing on the sharp sting of pain that has him surging up and sinking his teeth into the other boy’s neck.

He yelps, distracted, and Ian has enough human mind left to remember his arms, and his legs, and that fights are more than who can bite who. He lifts his knee into the guy’s stomach, pushing him off and relinquishing the hold he has with his teeth. Ian swings onto his knees, intent on pinning the husky to the ground, when he receives a punch straight into his stomach, knocking the air clean out of him and leaving him on his back again, vulnerable.

Clutching at his stomach and trying to breathe, he whips his leg around, upsetting the balance before the other hybrid can get the advantage again. The _boom_ as he hits the floor is louder than Ian expects. Ignoring the protest in his gut, Ian rolls over and then scrambles onto the still recovering husky, using what he learned from years of wrestling with Lip to pin the guy down.

Hands are already coming up and trying to grab at his neck, his face, his hair, and Ian wraps his fingers around the wrists and then slams them hard to the floor, their faces level as they attempt to growl at each other while panting for air.

Ian can hear his own blood rushing, blocking out nearly every noise but their joint labored breathing. The guy struggles, and Ian locks presses his knees in closer, tightens his grip.

 _The dog should win over the fox_ , Ian tells himself. It’s nature. It’s the way of things.

And yet the fox has the dog beaten.

They stare at one another, eyes sharp and lungs struggling for air, and Ian can smell it long before he can feel it.

Arousal. Thick and heady and so potent, he can practically taste it on his tongue. It shudders up his spine and makes him pant in an entirely different way, and it takes a moment for Ian to remember that he can’t smell his own.

The animal inside of him prowls, and the feral feeling increases; there is no reasoning behind this, no rationalizing. The way Ian’s hands grasp more fiercely, the way he locks their eyes, the way he presses their hips together—it’s purely animalistic.

Beneath him, the hybrid grunts at the contact, and it feeds whatever beast seems to be driving Ian. He sees the angry red skin where his teeth had sunken in and runs his tongue over it, rolling his hips down and groaning deep in the back of his throat as his own hardening cock rubs maddeningly against the other hybrid’s.

“Ian!”

He stills, and the animal inside of him retreats enough that he can make sense of the noise—it’s Fiona, calling his name, and slamming against the door with the flat of her hand as she does so. 

“You all right? What the fuck is going on in there?”

And just like that, the human part of Ian takes control again—takes note of where he is, what he’s doing, and of the still very interested erection in his sweats. He’s still catching his breath, but Ian pushes himself off and away from the other boy, running fingers through his hair as he regains his equilibrium.

What the fuck just _happened?_

“Ian!” Fiona calls again, and he knows that if he doesn’t answer, that they’ll get the door open someway or another.

“Fine!” Ian finally hollers back, still a little out of breath. His heart keeps pounding in his chest, even though the only exertion his body is making is sitting back on his feet. “Everything’s fine!” Except for his heart, and— _shit_ —the room. Stuff has been knocked off shelves, splayed across the floor like casualties of war. It must have happened while they were rolling around on the floor, but Ian can’t even remember it. Which is disconcerting, the same way he didn’t hear Fiona and the others tromp up the stairs.

Ian is _always_ aware of his surroundings.

Except, apparently, when he’s trying to injure and then fuck other hybrids.

His eyes roam over to him now, where he’s perched on his knees, staring at Ian intently with his eyes perked up. Ian feels another sudden overwhelming pulse of _want_.

“What happened?” Fiona continues to yell, and Ian wishes his family would accept the _everything’s fine_ at face value like they usually do. Apparently, Ian getting into an altercation is the most dramatic thing to happen that morning.

“I fell, ran into my shelf, knocked some stuff over,” Ian lies, not as smoothly as he might be able to under normal conditions, but passably enough, he thinks.

“We heard fighting, and…” Fiona pauses, and Ian turns his attention away from blue eyes to stare at the door in confusion. “And growling.” Fiona says the word like she’s unsure it’s correct. Because Ian being a hybrid is not something they talk about. Ian having something inhuman in him is not something that is discussed.

The animalistic word coming out of her mouth sounds strange even to his ears.

Ian’s eyes scan the room, like maybe he can find some other excuse there, but he’s too distracted by what just happened to be able to come up with something to explain it.

“I, just—just give me a sec, okay?” Ian settles on, his voice sounding a little desperate. He just needs a few minutes to get his head together, to maybe understand himself what just happened before he tries to explain it in a way that his sister will understand. “I’ll be right down.”

“You sure?”

Ian grits his teeth.

“Yep!”

This time, he hears the retreating footsteps, and the further away they get, the more he relaxes. It does nothing to clear his head, though. His eyes shift over to the husky again, who’s still watching him, and Ian’s gaze catches on the bite marks. _Shit_. He did that.

It takes him a few more moments to realize that the scent of fear, of aggressiveness, of distrust, is gone. That, while the air is full of tension, it’s not the kind that had had Ian approaching with caution. Somehow, their little fight had broken that. Somehow, Ian’s teeth in his skin made the other hybrid unafraid of him (if it was him he was ever really afraid of).

“…so,” Ian starts awkwardly, grabbing for his tail and grooming the fur with his palms—a nervous habit. But that’s all he can think to say. There’s a hundred questions piled up on the back of his tongue, about what just happened, why it happened, what it _felt_ like, but Ian can’t bring himself to ask. Just because they’re both hybrids doesn’t mean they can explain the behavior. It’s not like they teach classes in school or anything, explaining hybrid behavior. Ian can understand why—they’d need different classes for every breed of hybrid that existed.

Still, understanding that doesn’t make the fact suck any less.

After a few more seconds of silence, Ian starts to stand up, glad to see that his own awkwardness has diffused the whole dick situation.

He’s about to explain that he’s going to go and talk to his family and… And what? The guy should stay there? Like a _dog?_ Shit, the more Ian thinks about this, the more it feels like some sort of abduction than it does a kind (if ridiculously impulsive and somewhat dangerous) gesture.

“Hey.”

Ian blinks before he registers where the voice is coming from. Or, in this case, _who_.

“Hey?” Ian questions, like the word is in a different language.

“You got any smokes?”

Ian blinks. Doesn’t say anything.

“…cigarettes?” The guy clarifies, like Ian is stupid, and it makes him bristle a little bit.

“I know what smokes are,” Ian retorts, and turns around to shuffle through his drawers. He quit, but he’s sure there’s probably a pack or two with some stragglers buried in there somewhere. The thought of them makes his fingers itch. When he finds them, he tosses them and one of the many half-used lighters across the room. The hybrid catches them with ease.

“Thanks.” And that’s all he says. Lights one up, and nearly groans with pleasure as he sets it between his lips, mumbling out a satisfied, “ _Fuck_ , that’s good.”

Ian feels his blood rush to his skin in an almost unsettling way, and he shifts his weight, eyes darting around. He feels like he’s going to burst right out of his skin.

“I need to go and talk to my family,” Ian explains.

“Not stopping ya, Red.”

Ian’s eyebrows furrow a bit at the nickname.

“And, you know, you don’t have to stay.”

“Okay.” Smoke leaks through his lips in a way that makes Ian want to pin him to the ground again. He jolts a little with the realization, licks his lips.

Without anything else to say, Ian starts for the door, and just as the lock snaps out of place, he hears, “Mickey.”

“Huh?” He looks behind him again, blue eyes following his movements.

“My fucking name.” A smirk forms around the cigarette. “Mickey.”

Ian just nods, unsure what sort of battle he just won but feeling victorious all the same. When he shuts the door behind him again, he has to fight the smile twitching on his lips.

He doesn’t even know why it’s there.

*

“Wait a second, you _found_ him?” Fiona asks in disbelief, looking as unsettled by the information as she sounds. Ian traces a groove in the kitchen table and doesn’t answer right away.

“Yep,” Ian answers simply.

Fiona’s mouth opens wordlessly, and she throws a look at Jimmy where he’s leaning against the kitchen counter and frowning. Apparently the exchange doesn’t grant Fiona any further insight, because she looks back at Ian and asks a vaguely distressed, “ _Where?_ ”

Ian looks away, lips pressed together.

“Shit, Ian, where did you find this guy?” Fiona presses, actually sounding concerned now.

“Behind some dumpsters.” Ian shrugs, like it’s not a big deal. “A few blocks from work.” He meets his sister’s eyes, trying to convey conviction even when he can’t explain _why_ he did what he did.

“So he’s homeless,” Jimmy surmises, and Ian’s eyes harden. It kind of feels strangely like he’s being scolded by parents, even though Ian isn’t particularly familiar with the experience. In actuality, he’s lucky—at least Lip isn’t home.

“No,” Ian insists, and his mind flashes to the shackle he’d stuck in the bathroom cabinet.

“You found him in a dumpster,” Jimmy reminds him. He sounds a little amused, which doesn’t help the growing sense of aggravation that Ian’s feeling.

“Behind,” Ian corrects, “and he’s not homeless, he—“ _was chained up and he got away_. That’s what Ian has to say, but he doesn’t. He _can’t_. He knows what chains mean in this neighborhood. He knows what it means when someone is a prisoner. They’re dangerous. They did something fucked up to deserve it. They _should_ be locked up. There is no such thing as “innocent until proven guilty.” Everyone is just _guilty_ without question.

And Ian has the startling realization that he _doesn’t_ think Mickey is guilty. He thinks of every injury—every cut, every bruise—and the way that Mickey had been chained up. Like a dog.

“He’s just not,” Ian finishes.

Fiona stares at him steadily, reading his face, and Ian looks back at her evenly.

When her face softens into a smile, and she reaches across the table to gentle grab Ian’s wrist, he thinks maybe he’s won.

“How about we take him to a shelter, huh?” She’s using her Big Sister voice, the one she adopts when he’s had a bad day and she’s offering a hug and some chocolate. It’s always had a calming effect on him, but not this time.

This time is just makes him angry and frustrated.

“A _shelter?_ He’s not an animal.” Ian’s eyebrows lower, ears twitching with his offense.

“I’m not saying he is, jesus. I’m not talking about some animal shelter, Ian. They got hybrid shelters, right?” Fiona looks to Jimmy for confirmation, and he nods. For the only hybrid in the room, Ian really isn’t being consulted all that fucking much.

He knows there are hybrid shelters (again, he laughs darkly at the thought of _equality_ ). It works sort of like a homeless shelter, but it’s only available for hybrids. Ian has never been in one before, hasn’t had a need. But the idea of just dumping Mickey at one feels fucked up.

“Why can’t he just stay here?” Ian asks, defensively, and the corners of Fiona’s mouth dip.

“Ian, he fucking attacked you. Out of everyone, you should want him gone the most.” Fiona’s eyebrows furrow, her confusion painted plainly on her face.

“He—I goaded him, all right? He told me to back the fuck off, and I didn’t.” Ian just shrugs again, because it’s not a fucking big deal. If it doesn’t bother him, it shouldn’t bother them. “So can he stay here?”

“If he’s not homeless, why can’t he just go home?” Jimmy asks, voice too calm and casual for how heated Ian’s own aggression is.

“ _No_ ,” Ian replies, instantly and emphatically.

“Ian, you can’t just expect us to take some person in off the streets. He’s not some stray dog—“

“I _know_ that.”

“Do you? Because you’re acting an awful lot like a little boy trying to keep a puppy.” Fiona is halfway between exasperated and stern, and Ian’s agitation is making his tail restless behind him.

“He’s not leaving,” Ian says, and the growl that comes out in his voice leaves a stunned expression on Fiona’s face. It’s not the end of the discussion, but Ian can’t do it anymore right in that second. No one says anything as he stalks out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

*

Ian walks in on a staring contest between Carl and Mickey, and glances warily between the two.

“So you can’t do any wolf things?” Carl asks after a beat of silence.

“Christ, I’m not a fucking wolf, all right?” The cigarette Mickey had been smoking is gone, and his ears are pressed down again—this time in annoyance. Being back in the same room as Mickey reminds Ian of how _vivid_ the other hybrid smells to him. It’s not like Ian has never spent a good length of time with other hybrids, but this is… Different. Ian wishes he understood why.

“Ian said you were,” Carl states bluntly.

“Yeah, well the fucking vixen over there was wrong.”

“He’s a husky,” Ian corrects Carl. “And vixens are female foxes.”

“What-the-fuck-ever.” Mickey gives a dismissive flick of his hand, and it makes Ian smile a little bit.

“Carl,” Ian says significantly, giving him a look, and Carl sighs heavily as he pushes off the supporting post of his bed and heads for the door.

“That’s not nearly as badass,” Carl mumbles, and Ian _feels_ Mickey bristle more than he sees it. But Carl is gone before Mickey has a chance to say anything. Ian stares at the open door for a few seconds, unsure, and then closes it. Why not?

“So…” Ian starts again, leaning back against the door. “You got some place to go?” He figures it’s better to ask. If nothing else, it’ll clear his conscious of possibly abducting someone.

There’s a split second of tension, and Ian can smell the spike of fear so intensely that it almost buckles his own knees. And then it’s like Mickey remembers he’s in the room with another hybrid, one that can smell his emotions, and it’s gone.

“You kicking me out, Firecrotch?” Mickey raises his eyebrows and very obviously does not answer Ian’s question.

“Just thought I’d ask. Don’t want to hold you against your will,” Ian responds with a nonchalant shrug.

“Like to see you try,” Mickey huffs, as if it’s the funniest thing he’s heard all day.

And all Ian can think about is pining Mickey to the floor again as that feral feeling creeps up in his brain again, and he tries to shake it away.

“Well, you can stay here as long as you need,” Ian assures him with all the authority he doesn’t have. But fuck, Fiona is not the only one that supports this household. If having another mouth to feed is that much of a fucking deal, Ian will figure it out.

“What, I your puppy now?” Mickey’s mouth curls into a dark smirk.

“You’re not a pet.” Ian’s voice comes out more heated than he means, and Mickey seems genuinely surprised by it before he can mask it away. He looks away, sniffs at the air in a dismissively human way.

When Mickey continues to stay silent, Ian figures he’ll have to find a new topic to start—he’s not exactly keen on leaving, and it’ll be a lot easier to defend Mickey’s presence there if Ian knows more about him than the scars on his body.

“Hey,” Mickey starts, and Ian looks at him in surprise. There’s so much distance between them with Mickey sitting in the corner, and Ian pressed to the door, but Ian still feels overwhelmingly close to him. It should feel suffocating—it kind of _does_ —but Ian doesn’t feel that urge to get out of it, the way confinement usually makes him feel. Ian just wants to move closer, to make the pressure heavier and heavier until it crushes him or snaps apart. “You do this?”

Mickey holds out his leg, and it’s not hard for Ian to realize he’s talking about the towel-bandage still wrapped around his ankle. In fact, Ian is pretty sure that Mickey is talking about everything—the bath, the treated cuts, the clean clothes.

Ian nods, before saying, “Yeah, it looked pretty fucking bad.” _You looked pretty fucking bad_. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more. Not exactly a doctor or anything, and that shackle looked—“

“That’s none of your fucking business,” Mickey spits, quick and defensive and dangerous. Ian stares at him. “And no one fucking asked you to.”

Ian just nods, pushing away from the door and heading over to his drawers. It’s not like he expected an explanation for the shackle, even if he wants one. Maybe it’s better that way, for now, given that even the idea of the shackle makes him feel sick and angry all at once—this fierce, protective anger that makes the fox inside of him snarl, dangerous and afraid.

And maybe he was looking for a thank you, but he reads it in the way Mickey won’t look at him, in the way he plays with a ball of lint on the sweatpants he’s wearing. Ian gets the idea that _thank you_ ’s aren’t really his thing.

He finds another mostly empty pack of cigarettes. When Mickey has it in his hands, he doesn’t waste time in lighting one up, and Ian watches him. He sighs blissfully into every drag, sucking them down almost too fast, like a drowning man drinks in air.

“Been awhile?” Ian asks, and Mickey’s eyes turn dangerous again, tail stilling from where it started to wag contently behind him.

Mickey doesn’t respond, but his silence is answer enough. 

**Author's Note:**

> [Read, Reblog, & Like on Tumblr](http://missmichellebelle.tumblr.com/post/96298219710/hybrid-theory)


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